Riot Girls

“Come on, then.” Simone is already pulling her coat on and half-way out of the pub. Teresa pulls down the last of her drink and grabs at her sister’s hand. Mark follows. They’re striding down the road. It feels like those shots on the credits of American TV programmes. Shot at low level. The gang of heroes striding in slow-motion into the chaos. We will win. That was Guevara’s motto. Vinceremos. They’re flying along. The invisible boy and two vampire sisters. We are untouchable. Crossing over the main road in the middle of the Scothalls, Mark compares this to his usual walks home. He feels ten feet tall. In the distance the sky has a red tinge. Cars on fire in Harehills.
“C’mon, I want to kill something.”
Mark experiments with his power. Emptiness looks through the hole in my soul. He considers camouflage. He reflects on cloaking, stealth. In the cartoons, invisible characters sometimes appear with faint white outlines. You can see them walking through smoke. Throw water on them and you’ll see a splash-pattern. It’s not everything. But it is a buzz. It is a rush. There’s a sound in the street. That’s the sound of a riot. Somewhere ahead a pub is on fire. But there are no sirens. The police are already here somewhere and they are just letting the thing burn. Mark’s striding along with his heroine. They take his hands. The night is on fire.
They are getting closer and Mark is guiding the girls though back streets. This is his arena. These girls have never been out here. Chapeltown, Harehills, just names to these Headingley types. An old man is standing on his front lawn.
“Where do you think you’re going? It’s all fucking kicking off tonight. Go home.”
“Can’t find a taxi.”
“Yeah, shut up Grandad, we can handle it.”
Suddenly they step into a different world. In this street there’s a car on fire. The blazing pub is a couple of streets away and there’s a roar, a visceral throbbing from the battles kicking off in every street. On the high street there’s looting. The electrical shop is empty. A guy staggers past them carrying a huge TV.
“Get what you can,” he shouts, “the pigs are fucking shittin’ it.”
“Him.”
Her first kick strikes his knees from the side. He’s down. The TV seems to hover for a second before falling on him, knocking the wind out of him. He scrabbles to get up and the huge wide-screen effort rolls off his back in slo-mo. Sim aims a kick into his chin. You hear the click as his jaw closes. He’s too stunned to speak. Her next kick is from above. Death from above. His head bounces off the pavement. The double impact of her boot on his head, his head on the concrete is like a neat drum beat. Mark admires his queen.
When she fights she’s like a flail, separating the wheat from the chaff. Winnowing. Kicking the shit out of these men. Take that literally. She’s bashing all the crap out of them. Their smug superiority, their appetite for hurting girls. She’s so strong. Her bones seem so strong, like blades cutting into these men. Cutting the crap. Real surgical strikes, each one. Chopping the chips off their shoulders. Each one a chip of the old block. A real bloke just like his old man. Thinks with his old feller. She’s unbreakable; the stuff looks choreographed. Like Buffy – but instead of that neat dusting of the vamp, there’s a bleeding man at her feet. And what I want to know is – what is she going to do now? Your modern vampire has to be HIV-aware. You can’t just bite every tosser you come across (and yes I did intend the pun).
The corn-rows in her hair dance. She pulls a sickeningly long hooked blade from somewhere and slices a throat. It opens like uncooked pastry, spills out uncooked meat.
“That’s one for me.” In the smoky red air her vampire grin has never looked more real. These are the moments, people. We are angels of death. No one can touch us.
In the next street, Teresa sets a car on fire. Here’s how. She kicks a loose brick from a garden wall. The inhabitants, if they are in, are far too terrified to come out. She lobs the brick, almost lazily, through the car window. She opens the door up to the screams of the car alarm, but it’s just one voice in an infernal choir. There’s a map-book and Tess rips out a few pages, scrunching them up. For a moment it’s too cool. Like the girl-guides method of torching vehicles. Then she lights the balls of paper and tosses them, one onto each seat. The car welcomes its new fiery occupants and soon the seats have caught. A can of de-icer, left over from the winter catches her eye. She snatches it up and tosses it into the lap of the flame driver. Tess slams the door as the can starts to hiss maliciously like a wounded cat. It bursts with a slightly disappointing pop. More cap-gun than pipe-bomb.
In the next street it’s Mark’s turn.
“Him.” There’s a drunken looking man running at them.
“Fucking deserves what he gets.”
“You what mate?” yells Sim. The man slows, clearly surprised to be addressed by a young woman on this night of mayhem.
“Bloody cunt of a landlord. That’s his pub on fire. Hope it burns to the pigging ground.”
“Right on!” The man turns to Tess. He can’t see Mark. All he sees are these two girls in the middle of a riot.
“What the fu … What the fuck are you doing here? It’s mental out here.”
“Just going for a walk.”
And now he strikes. He leaps out of the void. Sim hands him the knife. It’s like a relay, it’s like being in a band. He picks up the rhythm and cuts the man viciously across the face. He’s invisible, but the spray of blood gives a clue to his position as it strikes his outline. The man lashes out blind. The blade has split one eyeball and blood blinds his remaining eye. A guttural howl is unleashed from his belly, but Mark’s dancing. Tess aims a kick at his crotch.
“No, sis, leave him. This one’s Mark’s.”
Mark’s spinning - the knife a sliver of lighting in the air. Suspended in darkness. Wielded by nothingness. An emptiness action-painted in blood. Jackson Pollock on Hawley Griffin. The blade hisses and opens up a cheek. Now Mark pauses. He takes a moment. Count. One, two. The man tilts his head up. What is he trying to do? He can’t understand where the attack is coming from. He’s trying to stop blood running into his eyes, his hand comes up across his face. As it moves out of the way Mark’s fist slams into his throat. It’s a calculated and devastating blow. The mythology of martial arts lessons. They tell you these techniques will kill. But in a street-fight, would you really have the time to use them. The specimen in front of him coughs. Trauma to his throat closes the airway. The only way to save him now would be to intubate, or do that battle-field trick with a biro and a sharp blade. But this isn’t ER or some chummy war movie. The guy is dying alone, helpless, watched by a trio of heartless killers.
“And that’s one to me,” yells Mark, wiping the guy’s blood from his face. He turns from his kill to feel Sim’s kiss on his lips. These are the moments, my friends.
“Let’s do one all together.” A man is approaching them. He’s bloody already. He holds a half-brick and a bottle of Newky Brown. He’s shouting things.
“Okay. I’m running this. Sim, you move to my right. Mark, take the left. We attack on my signal. Your code-word is: ‘charge’.”
The three of them fan out. Tess’s knife-handle clearly visible above her belt, nestling between the dimples of her lower back. She adopts a provocative, ass-shaking walk.
“My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard,” she sings, softly. The man’s eyes are on her.
“Fuck off, bitch, out of my way.” “Damn right, it’s better than yours.” This time the words feel disturbing. The foolish man hurls his brick through a car window. Is that supposed to scare us? Now he’s only got one potential weapon, but he’s still swigging from it. His head looks silvery in the riot light. A crew-cut. But this guy is a member of no crew.
“What are you girls doing out here?” Does he not see Mark? Does he think he’s a girl. He can’t see me, I’m invisible; he’s out-flanked by emptiness.
“I’d teach you, but I’d have to charge.” And on cue they close on their prey. It isn’t so much a charge as an encirclement. Out of nowhere, Mark strikes first. He drives the outer edge of his shoe into the guy’s solar-plexus. For a moment he sees it as the victim sees it. Thin air solidifying and smacking the oxygen from his lungs. Mark withdraws his leg and adopts a fighting stance - as if he were in a martial arts movie. No fear. The man doubles up. And Tess’s foot is whirling up and round. Over her head and down. Her heel strikes the man’s head. The beer bottle is still clasped in his hands, the lip in between his lips. His head and neck smash towards the tarmac under the impact of Tess’ attack. The bottle smashes, a muffled crack. He’s still for a moment, then looks up. From a ragged hole in his face dribbles blood. Fragments of glass and tooth fall to the street. Sim hears every tiny impact. The tinkle of tooth on tarmac. The ping of glass bouncing. She sees every drop of blood. As he rolls his head, she sees a fine mist of blood-spray tracking his movement. The killers tighten their ring. They are within arms length now and Tess holds her arms out at shoulder height, brushing Mark and Sim. Tess brings a boot down on the guy’s hand. He bubbles out a cry. Mark stamps down too, joining the dance. Sim’s stomp falls upon his ravaged mouth. They look like Greek dancers, joined at the shoulder. Or is it at Jewish weddings where glasses are crushed underfoot? They crush him under their dancing feet. They feel a rhythm control them. Their shoes are plastered with blood. It’s like that fairy tale: The Red Shoes. Put them on and you can’t stop dancing. They can’t stop. They are frenzied. Like women treading wine grapes. Their feet coated with juice, skin and bits of vine. Intoxicated by the dance, even beyond the intoxication promised by the wine they are making. And Sim reaches behind Tess’s back, drawing the knife. She hold it up, they see she means the dance to stop when she lets it fall. The knife swoops down. Tess grabs for an ear and displays his throat. And it is over.